How It Happens
by wild-sunshine
Summary: Paul gets everything he wants through a lie.


He can't remember if he's imagined this before, because it feels falsely familiar and feels terrifyingly new, a surrender he wasn't ready for.

"Kiss," Emma says, and Paul hates that. Emma never asks, she demands, and she alwaysalways_always_ gets what she wants. He never does. One day, she decided she wanted Jacob, and now here they are, Emma telling Jacob _kiss Paul_, like it's just for her entertainment. The day Paul realised he wanted Jacob, it was fear and it was unhappiness and it wasn't getting what he wants.

"But we're straight," he protests,_ lies_, and Emma just rolls her eyes.

"Details!" Emma says.

He says no, because he's never been brave. Jacob has already decided to do it, and this is when Paul realises that he doesn't mean no, it was just something inside him recoiling in fear, screaming _no, this is going to hurt, it won't ever stop hurting,_ and that he has no survival instinct to make him stand up for his protest.

"Okay, let's do this," Jacob says, grins at Emma because he knows she approves. Paul feels like he might throw up, so nervous he can barely breathe. It's going to be obvious, he's going to give everything away, he can barely control himself when they're just in the same room, and now they're _watching_ him. He's afraid of being found out when they're ignoring him like usual, but now they're looking, actually looking at him, and this is just the _beginning_.

"C'mon, gay chicken," Jacob says, laughing, because he doesn't know he could never win, that he'll win every time because Paul is already lost over him. Paul has imagined this, forgets because it was always different. It was never because someone told Jacob to do it, for reasons that weren't _because I love you_, because when he imagined this, it came with Jacob being in love with him, and it never felt real.

_Don't make me_, he wants to plead, because he's only barely holding himself together now, but if they're going to do this, give him everything he wants with plans to take it away later, Paul isn't going to _survive_ it.

Jacob leans in, smiles like this is nothing more than drunken amusement, and he waits. Paul nearly gives up, scoots forward a little, pauses, tries again, stops. He's trying to think frantically of how he could save himself, but then he realises - it's over, he's lost, it's time to take as much as he can before he loses everything, so he leans closer and presses their lips together.

It's fast, it's Jacob snickering and Paul just closing his eyes and struggling not to make a sound and Emma over in the corner giggling over it, and when Jacob pulls back he's laughing, looking to Emma to see if he did it right. Paul rubs his sleeve over his mouth, like he could wipe away the memory of the feeling, and he tries to smile even though he kind of wants to cry. Jacob would be able to see it all over Paul's face, his_ I liked that_ and his _I wish you wanted that_, but Jacob isn't looking at him. This wasn't how it was supposed to go, but he's said that so many times in the last few years, its lost all meaning, is just a tired whimper that he says so often, it's like he never stops.

"I think she'll buy it," Emma's telling Jacob, who's getting up to grab another drink. Paul just stays where he is, listens to them planning to use him in their plan, tries uselessly to convince himself that he will get through this unscathed when it already feels like his heart's been torn out. This is the only meaningful relationship he will ever have.

So this is how it happens, how Paul gets what he wants. It's delivered through a lie, given to him with an end date, and he's going to have to pretend he doesn't love it, but he gets everything he wants. The worst part is how even this is enough to make him happy, this lie he has to live, because it's a lie but it's _his_, and having nothing else to call his own makes Paul easy to please. It's like making a deal with the devil, promised happiness at the same rate as heartbreak, because everything he gets will thrill him even as it ruins him. Jacob kisses him and doesn't mean it; Paul is happy, heartbroken.

"I hope you're a good liar," Emma says to him. Paul laughs a little. He's an amazing liar.

"I love him," he says. It feels like the first time in years that he's told the truth, and no one believes him.

He's a good liar, but he can never keep the truth off his face; it's okay, though. They never look at him.


End file.
